For Once Maxie
by Mystic25
Summary: Okay, I keep seeing answers to that Cape Haven challenge to write an M/L ghost story in no more then 1500 words


TITLE:: "For Once Maxie.."  
AUTHOR:Mystic25 (yellowrubberduck31@hotmail.com)  
  
SUMMARY: Okay, I keep seeing answers to that Cape Haven challenge to write an M/L ghost story in no more then 1500 words, so I decided to give it a spin. I submitted myself if you will to join Cape Haven tonight, but I'm a "pre-member member" so I can't get into the good stuff yet..Anywayz, I'm always up for a challenge..1500 words..like a research paper..i can do it.  
  
DISCLAIMER: CAMERON AND FOX!!!!...thank you...  
  
A/N: I've gotten major inspiration that got rid of my writers block for Choices 15, must be all that encouragement from you guyz..:) Appreciate that. I also pulled the transcript for "Female Trouble" off the net, and read it last night for research into a post episode scene/fill-in-the blank kinda thing for after Max came back to Foggle Towers when she thought Logan was going to kill himself...but I saw this challenge and I had to take it..but I'll come back to that.  
  
A/N #2: I was thinking about setting this on "All Hallows Eve" but that would be too cliché, people can get scared at other times of the year too. Also, the virus is absent..no reason, other then I said so, if that makes me a bad writer for taking out an key event, then call me sucky.  
  
*****   
  
CRASH  
  
"Nine ball side pocket" Cindy lined up her shot, aiming her cue with precise movements. The hard click of the balls connecting each other told of her success.  
  
"Nice" Max commented from the sidelines with her beer mug in hand. She wasn't really into the game. She was more satisfied with being a casual observer. She took another swig of the beer from the frothy mug.  
  
Cindy laid down her cue on the table "Thanks boo" she walked over to where Max was at the bar, reaching for her own beer mug. "Week's finally ended. Miracles come small now" she paused to take a drink "If I'd a heard Mr. Bip Bip talk any more smack about us bein' lazy I would've given him somethin' to be anal about"  
  
"Over girl" Max reassured her friend "Two days off to do whatever the hell we want"  
  
"Mmhmm" Cindy agreed. She set her drink back down on the counter. "So you made your connection with Logan yet?"  
  
"What connection is that?" Max went for innocent.  
  
"The one where you call him, he tells you to drop by and I don't hear about you for twelve hours"   
Cindy cut in before Max could even open her mouth "And don't drop that 'we're not like that crap' on me, it lost effect after you first talked about the boy-" Cindy was cut off when a cold wind ripped by them.  
  
"Damn" the sudden chill caused Cindy to shiver "What the hell was that?"  
  
"Draft" Max said  
  
"No suga that ain't no draft" Cindy returned "Not with all these bodies up in here"  
  
The cool air passed by them again, invisible, making no trace of its existence there except to them.  
  
"Okay this is gettin' messed up" OC complained to Max and herself, looking around her for the source of the strange cold air. "I ain't in the mood for playin'"  
  
It was in that moment that Max glanced away from Cindy for a second, and she saw something, in the far corner of Crash. It was Alec. He was just standing there, alone against the wall, not talking. Looking around like he was searching for something, like little boy lost.  
  
"Talk bout messed up" Max looked back over at Alec still in the same position "Think the wall flower stuff is gettin' to-"  
  
"Hey there you are" Alec came around another corner. "What?" he looked at Max looking at him with confusion. Total confusion "I got something on my face? You startin' to think I'm hot-"  
  
Max cut him off, by pushing past him, shoving him out of the way. She looked back out over the crowd. What the hell was going on? If THIS was Alec, then who-The guy, the man she thought was Alec before was still there in the corner, still standing in the same place.   
  
He looked at her, and then he stepped closer. Eerily slow steps, like movements in a waltz. His look, puzzlement, turned to recognition turned suddenly to anger.   
  
"Maxie.."  
  
He spoke, he said her name, like her siblings use to do.  
  
"You did this.." he was coming closer "You finally did it, for once you were who you were created to be-" he was three feet in front of her now, and she tried not to be sick.  
  
His neck, it was twisted around, bones protruding out. And he was still talking to her. "For once you got rid of the anomalie"   
  
"Ben?" she said his name out loud, her dead brother.  
  
"Max-" Alec became confused; looking to see what she was looking at.  
  
"The Good Place would be great if I got to go there-" he was now right in front of her. She could see the vertebra in his neck sticking out of skin. "But we can't go there, remember Maxie..remember us being killers? You and me-"  
  
Max suddenly tried to lash out at him, but her hand went right through him, like he was water. His entire form was almost completely translucent. "You asked me to-"  
  
"I know"  
  
Cindy was just as confused as Alec, and a little scared that her boo was talking to herself.   
  
Ben smiled "You liked it, I can tell"  
  
"Shut up!" she barked to him, just like before when she had him in the Needle  
  
"You can't hide that kind of satisfaction"  
  
"Shut up!" to anyone else, she was screaming at herself. If only that were true.  
  
"Ben" stepped closer, touching a ghostlike transparent hand to Max's face "Remember the feeling of blood on your skin-"  
  
Max tried to bat away the hand that only she could see, and then made a horrifying discovery. Her hands, they were coated in blood.   
  
Her dead brother looked at her, with some satisfaction "how warm it is"   
  
She whipped up to face him then  
  
"I know you too well Maxie" he smiled again, sardonically. "I know you heard that snap in my neck-" he touched it, his broken neck. "And you tried not to but you liked it" His neck twisted again in a sickening snap of bone  
  
"Like this" as his neck broke more he continued to taunt her "Remember doing this?"  
  
Max didn't listen, she bolted past, right through him like air.  
  
"Max!" Cindy called after her, but she never turned around.  
  
Up the stairs she ran, ran past the crowd, the partiers. She began to wipe furiously at her pants, trying to get the stain to disappear.  
  
She turned around a corner, and he was there. "You can't wash away blood Maxie. It never comes off"  
  
"You told me to do it" she backed up, now talking to her vision like he was an actual person   
  
"I know Maxie" he repeated the same thing from inside. He was right in her face now. That cold air she felt from before, it was coming from him. He "touched" her face, and ghostlike lips brushed her forehead "You did it for me, you are who you were created to be"  
  
She was hit then with an old menace, seizures. They dropped her sliding to the ground, shaking.   
  
"Maxie, Maxie" Ben was beside her again "Don't you see? We can't run from this, I tried-" his sarcastic, sing-song tone became sad "I tried so much, but the Blue Lady, she knows it. She called me on it-" he touched her face again "We can never hide from this baby sister-"  
  
"Max-" a voice, a real person, Cindy beside her now "My God Boo-" her voice was scared.  
  
"Hold her arm still for a moment-" another voice, another friend. Logan. He'd come in on the scene, and she never knew it.  
  
She felt a needle go into her arm, liquid Tryptophane.  
  
"Ben" watched Logan inject the needle into Max's skin, looking back to Max with serious and sad eyes "We can't run from anything that makes us who we are"   
  
"Max" it was Logan again, touching her face for real "Max can you hear me?"  
  
Ben stood up "I loved you Maxie, I loved you so much.." he turned and walked away, slowly vanishing like a fog during mid afternoon, disappearing into the dark night.  
  
Max blinked, her eyes focusing again; a single tear fell from her eye. She turned her head  
  
Logan's hand was behind her neck "Take it easy" he looked at her, eyes full of concern. "You're okay now"   
  
"Boo, don't ever scare OC like that again" her home girl, her Cindy demanded this, eyes with as much worry as Logan. "You spaced out there, and now this, think I skipped a few heart beats"   
  
Max stood up then, brushing the hand that Logan offered for help. She took a few hesitant steps foreword, peering out into the night "I loved you" the words were whispered, traveling over the night.   
  
She turned back around to face her friends. One hand reached up to wipe the tear track away. "I really killed him didn't I?" she picked up her head to look at them, her eyes still glistening "He told me to tell him a story-" pause "So I held him and talked about the Good Place-" a tiny smile was there, and then it was gone "And that was it" she looked at them with the saddest eyes "But I loved him"  
  
"I know ya did suga" Cindy put her hands on Max's shoulder blades, her chin on her shoulder. Max stayed in the embrace for a moment.   
  
Logan came into her line of sight. She didn't say anything, but broke away from Cindy to lock her arms around him, no words, just that action.   
  
He didn't hesitate to return it.  
  
"I loved him" she repeated again, more firm this time, the last word lost on a sob. She hardly ever cried, so the sound of it was something desolate and agonizing.   
  
He didn't say anything, he only held her as she continuied crying.  
  
(Ben V.O) "We can't run from anything that makes us who we are..."  
  
(FADE OUT)  
  
*****   
  
Little thick...but I'm done now..  
TOTAL AMOUNT OF WORDS =1,500..ha..beat THAT..  
  
That was pretty interesting to write. The whole "evil Ben" thing was only done to have some reason to have Max worked up..but towards the end "Ben" gets sad, because he is an end result   
of his own worse nightmare..Like Max said to him in Pollo Loco "You're the anomalie, the   
monster in the basement. Some part of you wants to end it, so end it. You can't keep trying   
to recreate Manticore"   
  
Anywayz...R/R on this as usual please...writing is fun for me..reviewing can be fun   
for you..:)   
  
Peace  
Mystic 


End file.
